More Fires

Ventura County wildfire
(Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times / September 22, 2009)
A DC-10 drops fire retardant on the hillside by Grimes Canyon Road.

Five new wildfires in Southern California under mild Santa Ana conditions. LA Times is covering things well, so head over there for details. From the article:

Fire season got off to an ominous start Tuesday as Santa Ana winds fueled five brush fires across Southern California, including a 6,000-acre blaze that forced hundreds of residents to flee their homes in Ventura County.

The blazes erupted like clockwork on the first day of autumn, which typically marks the beginning of Santa Ana winds. Firefighters braced for a tough week ahead with more unusually strong winds and extreme heat forecast through the end of the week.

"We're in triple-digit temperatures and single-digit humidities . . . and it's beginning with a bang here," said climatologist William Patzert of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "There's not much good news."

So far, nothing significant has flared up in San Diego County.

Anglachel

Ventura County firefighters battle a blaze along Grimes Canyon Road that began south of Fillmore and marched rapidly to the outskirts of Moorpark. (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times / September 22, 2009)

Station Fire was Arson

Oak Crest Road in Sierra Madre
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times / September 2, 2009) Mill Creek Hot Shot crew members stop for a breather as they cut a fire line behind homes near Oak Crest Road in Sierra Madre.

The Station fire rampaging through the Angeles National Forest north of Los Angeles was caused by arson, according to the LA Times. With the death of two fire fighters, this means a homicide investigation is now under way.

Link to set of LA Times articles on the fire.

The fire itself burned 144,000+ acres and is still not under control, though great progress has been made. The last report said it was aboiut 38% contained. It is the largest fire in Los Angeles' modern history. The last two big San Diego Fires, the Witch fire in 2007 and the Cedar fire in 2003, were bigger fires and both were accompanied by south county fires at the same time. Since the Station fire has been successfully contianed within the backcountry, there has been relatively low damage to property (fewer than 100 houses burned so far), but the damage to the forest is immense. The following pictures were taken from Big Picture at Boston.com.

The Station Fire moves through brush September 1, 2009 in Sylmar, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Firefighters look for hotspots on a burnt landscape in the Acton area in California on August 31, 2009. (REUTERS/Gene Blevins)

Around Casa Anglachel, all we can hope is that we won't see a fire like this in San Diego anytime soon.

Anglachel

100K Acres and Growing

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times / August 31, 2009)
A group of young men watch the Station fire from a hill overlooking Tujunga on Monday night.

The Station fire continues to spread through the Angeles National Forest. Winds have picked up, but no Santa Anas yet.

More photos of the fire can be found here on the LA Times.

Anglachel

Station Fire

I had to post this image. It is on the home page of the LA Times right now, but will get changed out. Taken by Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times.

There wasn't a caption on the photo, but this is probably the Station fire bearing down on Acton. Two Los Angeles County firefighters were killed in a truck accident earlier today. The fire is climbing up Mount Wilson where most of the TV broadcast towers for the greater LA area are located, as well as an observatory.

Update - Here is an image of the fire on Mout Wilson. You can see the transmission towers:
(Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times / August 30, 2009)

Anglachel

Welcome to SoCal

Fun, sun and wildfires.

This is the view from Marina del Rey on the coast looking back at the Station Fire. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times / August 29, 2009) This photo is from the LA Times' web site photo gallery.

LA Times has the best general coverage since they are right in the middle of it and have a lot of practice covering this kind of disaster.

For those who like to track such things, here is a map of the fires, their anticipated paths, and the evacuation zones. The fires are burning in the foothills along the northern edge of the San Fernando Valley, almost due north of LA itself. It is a heavily populated area that backs onto wilderness areas. The terrain is a series of sharp, steep canyons that run for miles back into the hills and are packed with brush that hasn't burned in decades. This picture should give you an idea of the terrain and vegetation:

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times / August 30, 2009)
Firefighters defend a home on Canalda Drive in La Cañada Flintridge.

The canyons act like funnels, bringing the fires straight down into the developed areas sitting at the mouths of the canyons.

The temperatures have been in triple digits with humidity almost zero. There's a little cooling today and tomorrow, but then temperatures are due to go back up again. The only saving grace at the moment is that we don't have Santa Ana wind conditions, which whips up the fires and makes them spread faster and more widely.

So far, San Diego county has not had any major fires break out, though there was a 1,000 acre blaze on Camp Pendleton at the north edge of the county. The company I work for provides IT infrastructure for the city and county (communications, portable data centers, mobile computing, command and control operations, etc.) when disasters hit, so we're all on alert until the rains come in November. We're keeping fingers crossed we don't have anything like the fires in 2007. A nice, quiet, low fire year would be just dandy, thankyouverymuch.

Anglachel

California Dreamin'

This was taken near Huntington Beach yesterday afternoon. The smoke from the LA area fires blanket the area.

I think the LA Times is doing the best, least sensationalistic coverage. Check there for photos, maps and updates.

It is hot and dry here. My skin looks like it came from a lizard and my lips are cracking from the dryness. So far, there are no reports of significant fires in San Diego County but everything is on high alert. The National Weather Service forecasts these conditions to persist locally into Tuesday. We're still being spared the high winds they are getting further north which is probably why we haven't seen a big fire yet.

Anglachel

This photo came from the BBC:

And Another Wildfire Breaks Out

Another major fire has broken out, this one in the foothills above the San Fernando Valley near Los Angeles and 10,000 people are under evacuation orders. Dubbed the Sayre fire, it is also referred to as the Sylmar fire for the town it is burning down. Here is a page with live video of the fire. This is a more heavily populated area than Montecito, where the Tea fire continues to burn. That fire is 40% contained, according to this news report from the LA Times.

The problem of the winds is illustrated by the below photo:
See the palm tree torches behind the house? As they burn, the winds whip embers off them and carry the embers dozens, even hundreds, of yards away. In this case, they are all falling on the roof of the nearby house. If you watch some of the videos linked above, you will see how strong the winds are and how they get a "rain" of embers going. This allows the fires to jump over fire breaks, wide roads, even major freeways, and spread quickly and erratically. The Sayre fire jumped over Interstate 5 just north of Sylmar, which I believe is an 8 lane freeway at that spot. (Maps of the burn areas are embedded in the news articles I linked above.) Update - and here is a picture of I-5:
It is extremely hot and dry in San Diego County right now, and I'm near the coast where conditions are most mild. We are experiencing record high temperatures for this time of year, with inland temperatures in the 90s. What we are not experiencing at the moment are very high winds, which is what turns localized fires into fast spreading wildfires, though the entire county is under red flag warning for extreme fire danger. The big problem in this area is the new growth in the portions of the county where most of the building for the housing boom took place. There are many suburbs built near mountain foothills and canyons filled with dry vegetation. A number are built on the ridges and slopes, and they are directly in the usual paths of wildfires. When winds increase, a small fire can quickly become huge and these widely dispersed developments are surrounded by acres of tinder.

In California, your house can both be underwater and on fire.

Anglachel

Fire Season in California

Yup, we're still on alert down here. Drier and windier weather forecast for the weekend. This is the Tea fire burning in the hills above Santa Barbara.